


Welcome Home

by agentx13 (rebelle_elle)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Pre-Infinity War, according to the markus and mcfeely this is potentially canon-compliant, sharon carter day, sharon carter week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelle_elle/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: On the run from the government, Sharon takes shelter in one of her safe houses, an old apartment where almost everything is broken and needs some work. Fortunately, she knows someone who's willing to fix it all up.





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized, from writing the summary, that this could have been porn. I apologize if anyone is disappointed. I hope you can forgive me. :p

It starts with a broken coffee maker. Sharon doesn’t need coffee. Sure, she hates mornings. Loathes them, in fact. But there’s a coffee shop down the street and it’s not a dealbreaker. Not the first day, not the second.

And then, she leaves the safe house. Because she’s never there for long. That’s the point of a safe house.

But she comes back eventually. Because it’s a safe house. And it’s a house where she goes to be safe. It’s also a shithole.

Technically, it’s an apartment. The height of luxury in a dystopian nightmare where the building is rent-controlled and the landlord hates them all and refuses to do the bare minimum when he thinks he can get away with it, and no one wants to leave because it’s rent controlled, despite how the elevator doesn’t work and the building kids have named some of the rats and roaches that come out at night. The building is full of slightly weird people like that, only the previous generations had added and perfected their quirks. Stains were framed with art placards nearby; one resident painted in hole in the plaster black save for a picture of Wile E Coyote. There were bistro sets in some halls, painted doors in another. The hallway where the light bulbs shorted out almost as quickly as they were replaced now had string lights running the length of the hall, the plug disappearing beneath a resident’s door.

Inside her apartment, there’s one bedroom, so named because it’s the only room large enough for a bed. There’s a tiny bathroom where both the toilet and the shower require tricky handling and a touch of luck, and the kitchenette, dining area, and sitting area form an “open floor plan,” which most people would consider on room with a weird collection of kitchen-y things in the corner.

It isn’t much. But it’s a safe house her family has invested in for generations. It’s where her grandfather stayed after coming back from the dead, so to speak, and the rent was paid off early every month. 

The neighborhood also has a certain character that takes some people time to get used to. That’s fine. There’s a coffee shop on the corner. She can live.

The second time after the coffee maker breaks, she tries to make work with the situation. She’s a fugitive, and she’s accepted that. But to be a non-morning-person-without-coffee fugitive is too much to ask.

She deals with it. She’s trained to withstand torture. Having to get ready before she can see straight, before she’s had her coffee, is nothing.

It takes five days before Sam nudges Steve, and two more before Steve asks if she’s all right.

“Of course I am,” she says, hitting a bad guy a few more times than necessary. “Why do you ask?” She hits him a couple more times for safety’s sake.

“No reason,” Steve says slowly. “Uh… You just seem...”

Sharon knows that tone. She stops, straightens, glares.

Steve swallows. “Intense?”

Her eyes narrow. Her threatening expression is ruined by a yawn that threatens to crack her jaw. Once it’s done, she looks sheepish. “Rent-controlled apartment.”

“Ah,” he says. He doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t have to. He grew up in Brooklyn. He knows.

* * *

He also knows where her safe house is, and she’s not entirely pleased to open the door to find him standing there with his baseball cap and sunglasses. She tucks her gun away as she waves him in. “Picking me up for the ball game?”

He looks at her in confusion, and she points to his hat.

He takes it off and runs his fingers through his hair, looking embarrassed. “Disguise.”

She stares at him, not knowing how to break it to him that it is _never_ a disguise. He looks like Captain America, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses.

She can’t think of a nice way to say it and gives up, walking to the kitchen counter. She’s decided to experiment with pre-breakfast, something to give her enough sugar and caffeine that she doesn’t murder someone on the way to the coffee shop.

Looking through the fridge, she remembers that she had that plan the night before and hadn’t actually bought any food. She growls at the empty shelves. Well, nearly empty. There’s something in the back corner that’s black and furry and that she’s afraid to touch.

She straightens and sees that he’s watching her with his hands in his pockets. She scowls.

“Haven’t had coffee yet, huh?”

She scowls harder, and he nods.

“Coffee maker broken?”

Another scowl. He nods again.

“Let me take a look at it. You want to go get us coffees?”

She scowls, but her heart isn’t in it anymore. Her heart is in a semi-trendy shop down the block where the local owners try to keep up with the chain store across the street.

She heads out and takes her time in the shop, inhaling as much of the coffee bean scent as she can. When she thinks she’s ready to face conversation, she heads back.

Steve has coffee brewing. He’s also cleaned up and replaced some light bulbs, patched some holes in her walls, and fixed the window that never fully closes.

She stares at him.

He reaches for his coffee. “Used to have to fix stuff around the apartment,” he explains. “We couldn’t afford a handyman.”

“Huh,” is all she can think to say.

“You don’t have to pay me,” he offers.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

He ends up fixing her air conditioner, her leaking sink, her leaking shower head.

“Don’t you ever fix _anything?_ ” he asks.

She stands there, watching him and sipping coffee from her coffee maker. He’s gotten to see her at a disadvantage; it’s only fair she get to see him when the shower drips on him and soaks his shirt. “Not usually here long enough to bother.”

The thing with Steve is, she realizes, is that he has a drive to fix things. It’s not just her apartment. The laundry machines downstairs get fixed. Wiring in the hallway gets fixed. Mold gets cleared out. Walls get repainted. Even a couple bikes left out overnight are fixed up, and when word gets out, everyone starts leaving their bikes in the hallways until they’re fixed. Sharon can’t prove it’s Steve, but he starts keeping a change of clothes at her place, and he has his own coffee cup and a water bottle there now.

She thinks the best part is when she hears the elevator ding for the first time in what feels like forever. It happens after Steve tells her he wants to show her something, and instead of heading to the stairs, he leads the way to the elevator. He presses the button and grins at her when she tells him it’s broken. 

And then the elevator dings, and she can feel her brain screech to a halt as it reassesses if this reality. She stares at him. “How-?”

He motions for her to go in first, and she manages not to wonder aloud if she’s the guinea pig here, if the elevator is going to go crashing downward after she steps in. But no, he wouldn’t do that to her. She steps in, and he gets in after her. “Won’t lie,” he says. “I had to read some books.” He looks insufferably smug.

The elevator door opens to reveal a bare hallway, and she thinks that maybe he’ll punch the button to take them back to her floor. Instead, he motions for her to get out, and she does. After that, he leads the way up the stairs one final level, and he opens the door to reveal the roof.

This, too, has been fixed. Strings of light crisscross overhead. A roofed patio area sits in the middle of the roof, with a bar underneath. There’s a grill, raised garden beds, outdoor games like cornhole and oversized Jenga. Her jaw has fallen open, and she forces it closed as she turns to him.

He looks nervous, hopeful. As if he’s afraid that somehow she might not think this is amazing.

“This settles it,” she tells him, her voice firm.

Now he looks terrified.

“You’re moving in.”

He stares at her, and she gingerly takes his hand.

“There’s no helping it,” she says with a sigh. “I’ll just have to put up with you.”

He frowns. “But- but you’ve only got one bed.”

She blinks at him. For such a smart guy, intelligence is not his skillset.

“Oh,” he says, understanding at last.

She nods, gives his hand a tug toward the stairs.

“I should get my stuff,” he says.

She looks at him over her shoulder.

With another belated realization, he says, “Later.”

She nods. “Later.”


End file.
